Of love letters long past

My uncle passed away last Sunday. He had a short and terrible fight with cancer, but there was nothing to be done. He was given painkillers and made as comfortable as possible. He went from being a huge burly guy to a shadow of himself.

My dad went yesterday and cleaned his house, and amongst the things he had, he had a beautiful love letter from my great grandfather to his -at that time - girlfriend, which would later become his wife. It's dated January 2nd, 1912 and is basically a letter apologizing to my great grandma for not being with her. Today we would send a text message to our loved one asking for a rain check, back then the apology turned into the most romantic love letter ever. It reads: "I'm sorry for not being by your side, you know how much the absent heart aches, but soon, the day after tomorrow, I will be able to enjoy the pleasure of seeing you and be able to tell you: I'm yours. But now, far away from you, my spirit is by your side and accompanying you, and telling you to please wait for me." He signs it "Goodbye machita (blondie), your Rómulo"

It's too bad that we've lost that eloquence and romanticism that would turn an everyday thing into a poem.

Jewelry pics finally here!

I finally got my jewelry pics together in a nice collage. They will go into my facebook page/cart for sale through there. I have nice earrings (pierced ear only) and bracelets. I'll keep adding to them as these are my outlet when I'm stressed or in a meeting. I need to do something with my hands so I can pay full attention to what's going on, so what better way to do this than to create beautiful pieces?

I don't actually use jewelry, I wear only one pair of earrings which I never change, besides that I wear my marriage ring and that's it, I don't even own a working wrist watch! But I do love being creative with jewelry! I also love collecting jewelry magazines, especially if they're in Japanese, they are sooo creative!! So similar to the soaping obsesion, I have no place to put them and need to sell them.

Stop by my facebook page...great discount for fans!! So be sure to "like" us!

OMG - Inspiring soaps!!

I was blog surfing today looking for inspiration and boy was I inspired. There are soooo many amazing soapers out there - it's even intimidating!

 

One soaper in particular caught my eye (heart/inspiration/etc.) She's KBShimmer, her blog can be found here, and her shop here.

 

She by far is the most daring person I've known...15 color soap swirls?? I have just mastered the one color - but 15?? That's guts, and artistry...I would've probably ended up with a grey mess, as I tend to over mix.

I will however be trying a two color in the pot swirl she so kindly demonstrates in this video:

How fun is that!!

Be sure to go by her blog and drop her a note...she is going on my hero list :)

Two more castile beauties out

Bagged and tagged :) I love castile soap, it's super easy to make, there's no forgetting to add oils (what's that on the counter? 5 oz of castor oil!! oh snap!! - you know what I mean), traces quickly when pomace is used, it's nice on everybody's skin and generally white, which means it goes well with almost anything you want to throw in the pot.

First I made some spotted castile - as I affectionally call it - it's a light exfoliator because of the poppy seeds and has no other additives, fragrance or color. It's a great seller because of this, there's no worry about allergies, yet provides "spa" soap properties.

The other one I made was a mad scientist one. Started out as a rosemary lavender, which people seem to love down here (I can't stand lavender). I added a whole sprig of fresh rosemary to the oils and put it on my magic bullet to mix...it came out almost like a mayo consistency, but everything chopped nicely. I then added the lye, I did notice something really interesting when adding the lye: the oil was at room temeprature, the lye was super hot...it had just turned clear, yet when I added the two together, trace happened within 2 minutes. I thought it was going to take forever because of the temp difference and the oil being just olive which tends to trace slower - go figure!

When I was mixing oils+lye, waiting for it to trace, I noticed I did not have any lavender on hand!! Sooo...I added calendula petals once cooked (which took about three hours and a nasty burn on my tougue - note to self: use testing strips for castile...it's tricky to cook), yet the smell was not what I had envisioned. I ended up choosing lemongrass EO and this amazing bar came out :) it smells really fresh, has a great texture, almost candle like smooth, has the soothing action of calendula petals and is 100% olive oil. What better way to love your skin!?!

I still have the soaping fever, but alas, I have no lye. So I'll have to wait to purchase more lye, and olive oil, and coconut oil, and.... you know how it goes.

So happy soaping everyone, make one batch for me ;)

Success - CP red on white swirls

  Hooray for me!! I did it!! I made a successful batch of CP soap including swirls and all. It turned out beautiful and will be ready by St. Valentine's day...so perfect timing!!

I scented it with ylang ylang and roses, red part is vainilla. So it's a girly girly bar of soap, really sweet and flowery :)






I've also created a shopping cart on my Facebook page!! I've been busy :) So you can go have a look at what is available for purchase. These are the four sizes I'm currently offering, small 1.5 oz, medium 2 oz, large 4 oz and extra-large 5 oz.

I've also made more HP soap: coffee soap, beer soap and ginger cinnamon. For some reason my soap this year is colored grey or beige...which I'm perfectly fine with...but I do feel like I need some color in my life, so I'll go ahead and order some micas from TKB Trading. A colleague uses them in her makeup line and is really happy with both the quality and the service. So I'm confident about the product, plus all the talk on forums about the company makes me feel good about working with them.

On my curing rack I have mango/peach (CP), another batch of beer soap (CP), lemongrass rosemary castile(HP) and spotted castile (HP). I'm running out of space, but I have the soaping fever, so I'll be making some coconut soap today.

Starting next week, I hope I can begin with the 300 project. I need to refill my coconut oil and olive oil (again) I'm running short on both of them, plus I need the beeswax and cocoa butter to start making the lip balms and perfumes - packaging not here yet, but I'm sure it's coming this week.

A lot on my plate, but extremely happy :)